Vol. XXIV. No. 12.] 
POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 
187 
t 
of the late Robert Chambers, of Edinburgh, de- 
scribing her experiences in the Carpathian Mount- 
ains. Travelling- witli no other companion than 
a peasant attendjiit, she lived for ten weeks among 
the people, conforming almost entirely to their 
ways of life. 'ier account of the villages she 
passed thr^-ugh cind their occupants was delight- 
fully given and greeted with a round of cheers. At 
its close Miss Dov/ie received congratulations from 
the chairman on he courage and enterprise she had 
displayed, and e. vote of thanks was, with much 
enthusiasm, accorded her. 
The address of the President, Sir Frederick Abel, 
a survey of the progress of applied science in certain 
definite lines, was adapted only to the specialists 
among his audience. In this respect he was fol- 
lowed by more than one of the vice presidents. 
Of the others. Captain Noble gave a strikingly 
clear and effective description of the Forth Bridge, 
followed by a comparison of the mechanism and 
effectiveness of the war ships of the early part of the 
century with those of the present, and a discussion 
of the explosives now coming into use. The asso- 
ciation of Leeds with Dr. Joseph Priestley, provided 
Professor T. E. Thorpe an opportunity of emphasiz- 
ing Priestley's true relation to the marvellous devel- 
opment of chemical science which marked the close 
of the last century. Sir Lambert Playfair, Consul 
Cjeneral for Algeria, taking his large audience on an 
historico-geograf hical tour round the shores of the 
.Mediterranean, sketched the succession of events in 
those regions from the founding of Tyre to the 
French annexation of Tunis, considering at the 
same time some of the practical problems of the 
moment. Upon the scheme for flooding the Sahara 
he poured contempt, but spoke with enthusiasm 
of what may be done there by artesian wells. In 
tho.se places where the drainage, instead of flooding I 
open spaces and forming what are called chotts, 
finds its way through the permeable sand till it 
meets impermeable strata, he has seen one well 
alone throw into the air a column of water equal to 
1,300 cubic metres per diem — a quantity sufficient to 
redeem i,Soo acres from sterility and to irrigate 
60,000 palm trees. 
To the Economists, Professor Alfred Marshall 
presented with characteristic openness of mind a 
review of some of the changes that are going on in 
the mode of action of competition, and the attitude 
of economists regarding it. Discussing the various 
aspects of the (]uestion of production. Professor 
Marshall digressed on the way to speak a little on 
protection and fr.;e trade. American protectionists, 
he admitted, have something to say for themselves, 
and once had more. But, having in their own 
country studied their position, his deliberate judg- 
ment is in favor of free trade for the United States. 
Those phases o( competition and combination 
touching the strjggles of small capitalists against 
one another, and the union of great capitalists in 
the form of trusts, received careful and impartial 
consideration. The address began with the state- 
ment that econcmists of today no longer keep a 
supply of generii. propositions and dogmas ready 
for special appl cation at any moment. It con- 
cluded with the expression of the speaker's profound 
conviction that ''every year economic problems 
become more complex; every year the necessity 
of studying them from many different points 
of view and in many different connections becomes 
more urgent. Every year it is more manifest that 
we need to have more knowledge and to get it soon, 
in order to escap; on the one hand from the cruelty 
and waste of irrespcnsible competition and the 
licentious use of \veaUh, and on the other from the 
tyranny and the spiritual death of an ironbound 
socialism." 
The Leeds meeting will be remarkable in the 
memory of most of those who attended it for the 
general lectures given in the Coliseum. Probably 
at no meeting have any more masterly, more intelli- 
gible, and more instructive been given. Professor 
John Perry, of London, gave an explanation of a 
rapidly made series of experiments with spinning 
objects — some set in motion by the hands, but 
others, including tops and gyrostats, set in very 
rapid rotation by means of an electro-motor. The 
object of the lecture was to show that all problems 
raised by these spinning objects had their analogy 
in the rotation of the earth, and that the fact that 
the earth is a spinning top is a great and persistent 
cause of many phenomena. It is, he said, probable 
that terrestrial magnetism is altogether due to it. 
Mr. E. B. Poulton's discourse, delivered without a 
single note, made clear the relation between mim- 
icry and the other uses of color in the animal king- 
dom. The illustrations thrown upon the screen 
were, so far as possible, new, and, though some 
of them had been described before, all had been 
prepared specially for this occasion. Not less fasci- 
nating was the lecture by Professor C. Vernon Boys 
on the wonderful properties of quartz fibres, which 
he himself may be said to have discovered. Finding 
it necessary in the use of a new instrument, a radio- 
micrometer, to measure a force so excessively 
small that even a silk fibre was too coarse, he 
obtained finer wires by shooting a very light arrow, 
which drew after it a very fine fibre of quartz from a 
piece of molten quartz held in the flame of an oxy- 
hydrogen blowpipe. In this manner he obtained a 
thread not more than 1-15,000 of an inch in diame- 
ter, and which will show an appreciable twist with 
a force of a thousand-millionth of a grain weight 
applied at the end of a lever one inch long. This 
lecture was also illustrated with lantern slides, 
showing the various applications of the fibres, and 
a comparison of their thickness with that of fine 
wire, spun glass, and silk from a silkworm cocoon. 
Lectures such as these, prepared for and delivered 
to large audiences of what are called in England 
the operative class, form no small part of the useful- 
ness of the British Association, and, perhaps better 
than in any other way, further its main object — the 
advancement of science. 
[Original in Popular Science Neto».\ 
BRIEF STUDIES IN BIOLOGY. 
BY PROF. JAMES H. STOLLER. 
CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 
THE VERTEBRATA. 
These studies in animal biology have now dealt 
with examples of six of the great primary groups, or 
sub-kingdoms, of the animal world. But one more 
sub-kingdom remains, and that is the great one 
of the Vertebrata. In this division are included 
most animals that are familiarly known, both those 
domesticated and those that live in the wild state. 
And it is true that not only in general interest, 
but also from the standpoint of zoological science, 
the five classes of vertebrata — namely, fishes, am- 
phibia, reptiles, birds, and mammals — are each of as 
much value as any of the sub-kingdoms of inverte- 
brate animals. But on the basis of structural 
differences — structure being the ground of classifi- 
cation — each of the invertebrate sub-kingdoms must 
be given the same importance as the great division 
]'e7'telrata. Hence these five classes are thrown 
together into one sub-kingdom, co-ordinate with 
the six, typical animals of which we have already 
studied. 
Instead of taking a single animal as a type of the 
entire group, it will be best in our present study to 
have in mind examples of each of the five classes 
of the Veitebraia. Let us choose as familiar repre- 
sentatives of these classes, taking them in their 
natural order as named above, the trout, the frog, 
the lizard, the robin, the dog. . We will notice what 
characters these animals have in common, and thus 
gain a knowledge of the distinctive features of ver- 
tebrates in general. 
Our attention is first directed to the fact that these 
five animals are like one another in the fact that 
they possess an internal skeleton. We must remark, 
too, that in this they are different from the inverte- 
brate animals we have studied; some of these — the 
starfish, the grasshopper, and the snail — possessed 
an external skeleton, but in none was an internal 
one present. Stopping only to observe that this is 
a broad distinction between the two great primary 
divisions of animals, and that it is obviously correl- 
lated with general differences in the arrangements 
of organs, we next notice, in regard to the internal 
skeleton of the five animals, that in all it shows an 
axial portion, consisting of a row of bones, called 
the vertebral column, jointed at the anterior end to 
a box-like, bony structure, called the skull. It at 
once becomes clear (hat this column of bones, with 
the skull, is the leading feature of bodily structure 
in these animals, and that; it is properly determina- 
tive of their place in zoological classification. . For 
in all we find that the several systems of organs, 
particularly the nervous system, have the same situ- 
ations in the body, relative to the vertebral column. 
In regard to the nervous system, it is to be noticed 
that its main portion is contained within the hollow 
of the vertebral column and that of the skull, form- 
ing the spinal nerve-column and brain. From these 
considerations alone it becomes clear that animals 
which upon superficial examination seem so unlike 
as the trout and the dog, must be placed in the 
same general group (sub-kingdom). 
But further observation shows that there are other 
features of resemblance besides the fundamental one 
of the possession of a backbone and cerebro-spinal 
axis. Looking at the external parts of the animals, 
it is seen that the organs of locomotion, whether 
fins, wings, or legs, are arranged in pairs, and that 
the same number of pairs — namely, two — is present 
in all.' (It is true that in the fishes, besides the 
paired fins there are median fins which aid in 
locomotion). Further examination of the limbs — 
using this word as applied to locomotive organs 
of any sort — shows a much closer resemblance than 
in regard merely to arrangement and numbers. It 
is seen that all show the same plan of structure, 
that is, consist of like parts, similarly related. Thus 
an examination of the skeletons of the fore limbs 
shows that in all, save the fish, there are present, 
bones of the upper arm, fore arm, wrist, and hand 
— the same, it will be observed, as in the arm 
of man. In the case of the fish the difference is by 
no means a radical one ; it is only the upper division 
of the limb that is lacking— the bones of the fore 
limb and the wrist are present, and the fin answers 
to the manus, or hand, of the other vertebrates. A 
comparison of the skeletons of the hind limbs 
of the several animals shows a like correspondence. 
Furthermore, a study of the sets of bones, called 
arches, by which the limbs are joined with the 
vertebral column, shows a close structural cor- 
respondence in all. We may sum up by saying 
that the parts by which locomotion is efltcted in all 
the five classes are plainly made on the same plan, 
but they show modifications in adaptation to the 
physical surroundings of the animals— the limb 
of the fish to locomotion in water, that of the bird 
(in the case of the fore limbs) to a life in tlie air, etc. 
The relationship of the five classes of vertebrates 
thus seems clearly established on the basis of cor- 
respondence in structure. Equally strong evidence 
